36 Week Ultrasound

Here is our little guy at 36 weeks.

At the last few doc appt's that I have had, he has consistently been measuring 'big'. So after my last appt, she scheduled an ultrasound to just see if she could get a better idea of size. She said the due date was probably right, but that he just might be a big baby. I didn't think we would be having another ultrasound so I was pretty excited that we got to go see him again. Unfortunately, at this point, we couldn't really see very much. The poor little thing is just smooshed in there, all rolled up in a little ball. It looked like a very tight squeeze. This was the best photo that we got. It is a profile shot of the left size of his face, with his nose pointing up. He has his hand in a fist resting on his forehead. All of the other photos just look like black and white blurs so I'm not even going to post them. 

After doing her measurements she told us that he looks the size that he is supposed to be right now. It is hard to estimate weight from an ultrasound but she said she thinks he is about 6 lbs 3 oz right now, and I shouldn't have anything to worry about. I guess we'll see in a few weeks. :)

We can't believe he will be here in just a few weeks. The time has flown by. My whole pregnancy has been great. I really don't have anything to complain about. In the last couple weeks, I have definitely been feeling more uncomfortable, but nothing compared to some horror stories I have been hearing lately. For some reason, women have just been feeling the need to tell me about all the things that went horribly wrong at the end of their pregnancy. Like one girl that got some head to toe itchy rash and had to be induced early. And one girl that broke her tail bone during labor. My friend go ring worm from the hospital. Several epidurals didn't work. Holy moly, don't tell me these things when I only have a few weeks left.

 I feel pretty good during the day when I am up and moving around. It's at night that everything starts getting uncomfortable. My back has hurt pretty bad a few nights and my side muscles feel like they are getting ripped off by my belly when I lay on my side. Good thing Ryan has been a good sport about having 10 pillows on our bed. I've also been getting more heartburn at night when I lay down. Not too bad but just enough that its annoying. I haven't swollen up too much from water retention. Its mostly just on days when I am on my feet all day that they get pretty sore and swell up some. Nothing like I have seen on some women though. The other day, I got home from a long day, took off my shoes and said to Ryan "woah, Ryan, look my feet are swollen!" Teasing me he said, "Holy cow! They look like elephants feet." I like to give him a hard time so I said..."Do you realize that you just referred to your pregnant wife as TWO large animals, within ONE sentence?" LOL. We had a pretty good laugh at that. Sometimes I do feel like a floating blimp, but there's not much I can do about it so I just roll with it. :)

Can't wait to see our little baby in just a few weeks! :)

Baby Room

We are making progress on little Diesel's room finally. Its not done, but we're getting there. This past weekend we got it painted and finally got everything organized. We painted over the hideous lemon yellow that was in there and made it a light brown.  I HAD to get rid of the yellow but I didn't want to have to repaint when we move out. I still need to hang a few more things and add some finishing touches but we are almost ready for baby D!

Before. Ugly Yellow

After. :)

Lots of clothes already

And Lots of diapers! Friends and Fam have totally hooked us up.

Free Kiddie Kandids

Tonight we ran to the mall to exchange a pair of pants for Ryan. As we were walking by Kiddie Kandids, the lady inside snagged us and said, "Hey can I do a free maternity photo for you?". I'm thinking ...yeah right, nothing is 'free', she's going to try to sell us on some package. So I told her, no thanks, I didn't really get ready today and I'm in my Nike's, a t-shirt and a pony tail!!! Not really feeling up to portraits right now! lol. But she didn't have any appointments and must have been bored. She convinced us to just go take a few for fun and for free. It was actually pretty fun. We didn't have anywhere else to be so we were just rolling with it. I wish I would have looked cuter for the pics but free is free and she gave us a free print of the one we picked.

Here are a few of the ones she took. The quality is pretty bad since I just saved the thumbnails on the proof website. But I wasn't about to pay 100$ for fully copyrights to my ponytail. :) But its ok, I guess it documents the everyday life of a pregnant woman. "I'm going comfy and this is as good as its going to get for today."

That one's pretty cute actually :)

Sweet Nike's!

And awesome pony tail!

Aww. Presh. lol. This is the one we picked for our free one.

Hahaha!. We were laughing pretty good at this. That is Ryan with a Santa sleeve on.

And... the classic baby belly heart.

World Preemie Day

Today is National Prematurity Day. I didn't know that until today when I saw something about it on facebook but I have actually been thinking about little preemie's a lot over the past week. I am 28 weeks pregnant right now. Ryan was born at only 27 weeks! So this past week we have been talking about when he was born and what it was like. I am very grateful that my little guy is still in there cooking away, but it is reassuring to know that if something were to happen at this point, he would have a good chance at survival.

We pulled out Ryan's baby book to look at the photos of when he was born. It was kind of neat (for lack of a better word) to see what my baby looks like right now at 28 weeks. I know he is in there, kicking away, and that he is the size of a 'head of cauliflower' (and who in the world decided that all baby sizing needed to be compared to fruits and veggies, lol), but its amazing to see those photos of Ryan and know that my baby looks about the same right now. :)

Here is baby Ryan at 27 weeks. He only weighed 2 lbs 12 oz! He was just a little guy.

10 Hours old. 2 lbs 12 oz. 17 1/2 inches.

Here he is 2 days old with his Mom and Dad. You can see how tiny he was. He fit in the palm of his Dad's hand.

9 days old. This photo is really dark, but you can see how teeny tiny his little bones are.

It really is amazing to think about how much of a miracle baby Ryan was and how many odds he overcame to make it. This is a little journal entry that his Mom wrote in the back of his baby book...

"Ryan was born three months premature. Before I gave birth I was told that he didn't have a very good chance of living. They told me about all the diseases he would probably have and how hard he would have to fight to live. But he did so well from the moment he was born. He flew to Primary Children's Hospital in a helicopter 20 min after he was born. I only got to see him for a minute before they took him off. I was so afraid that he would die before I ever got to to see him again. He was so beautiful and so small. The next day I got to go see him, and he was doing well . All the tubes they had in him made me nervous. And his tiny little body was fighting as much as it could. After only ten days he could breathe all on his own." 

And just for fun, here are a few pics that I found in his book that I thought were just too cute!! :)

Ryan's bike that he got for Christmas '84

He's been a lifelong handy man! 

His tool bench that he got for Christmas '86

And here is Ryan today, at 6' 7", with his own little baby boy at 27 weeks old.

Happy Halloween

Bailey the Giraffe

When I went home to CO a few weeks ago we did a few photos of Bailey in her giraffe costume for her first Halloween. She loved her little Giraffe outfit. So cute!

Adventures in Registering

Last week Ryan and I went to Target to set up a baby registry. Ryan was exactly super duper excited about it but let's be honest, neither was I after my overwhelming experience at Babies R Us. Ryan has been really busy lately and it seems like every Saturday has had something going on that he needs to be at. So I told him, he didn't have to go to both places to register with me, but I wanted him to come to one. He picked Target. Good choice.
I went to Babies R Us one afternoon while I had some free time and thought it would be a piece of cake. I thought it would be like registering for wedding stuff. You just go down all of the aisles scanning whatever is pretty and whatever you think you want for you new house. Well...registering for a baby is more like figuring out what you 'need' as opposed to what you 'want'. And once you get in the thick of the millions of foreign baby products in babies r us, you realized that you have no idea what you really need.
I'm pretty sure I looked like a deer in the headlights most of the time. Luckily, when we were there a few weeks earlier, my sister pointed out a lot of the items that she recommended and said were 'must haves'. But its a lot harder when your standing there in the aisle looking at 15 different bouncers, trying to weigh the pros and cons of each. Which ones have auto bounce, which ones play music, which ones have vibration, which ones aren't battery-only operated. Do I really that giant contraption that looks like a space contraption, that swings my kid in every possible direction and probably feeds him too?! Try looking at the wall of pacifiers. Seriously, there's like 100 options! Don't even get me started on the bazillion options they had for pumps and baby monitors. ey yiy yiy!
Needless to say, registering at Target was much more enjoyable and we did have fun. They have a nice contained limit of 4 aisles, and more 'fun' things like toys, blankets, and cute little teeny tiny shoes.

Poor Ryan.. :) He did have fun picking out some stuff, but I made him pose with the scanner so I could have a photo. He is a good sport.

Here is me scanning my belly, because that little guy in there is the only thing that I really want to register for. :)

Here is Ryan saying 'Do babies really need ALL of this junk?!' lol.

I told Ryan we could go get ice cream after. We ended up using a gift card that we had and getting a whole bucket of coldstone to stick in the freezer instead. It is so much cheaper that way! And lasts a lot longer.

Baby Diesel

...and no that is NOT his name. That is our nickname for him for now so we have something to call him besides 'it' or 'the baby'. I knew people would give their opinions about baby names, but oh my gosh people...for real?! I am so surprised at how little tact some people have. "Just remember, if you name your kid this or this, he might always say, what were my mom and dad thinking."  or "Hmmm, yeah....I don't really like this or this name. Maybe you should name him this because I like it"  ... Seriously?!  Gotta love all of the oh so helpful people that share their advice and opinions with you just because you're pregnant. :)

But we do have a few names picked out that we both really like, and I'm pretty sure we have one that will probably end up sticking.

Aside from the name :) .. things are going great getting ready for Baby Diesel...yes.. Baby Diesel.
At my last appt the doc said everything was looking good and he was right on schedule. Here are some pics from our 20 week ultrasound that I don't think I ever posted (I'm 24.5 weeks now)

I know I'm kinda partial since I'm his mom and all, but I just think he's so cute already. :) I love this little guy.

Ryan has been great about helping me with things while I'm preggo. He has taken over cleaning the shower/bathtubs/toilets for me so I don't have use the nasty cleaners. He's the best! I still do most of the laundry but Ryan is building me a sweet washer/dryer stand to raise the machines. Our laundry room is super narrow and I'm already having trouble bending over to get the clothes out of the machines since they are front loaders. I can't wait until its done! It is going to be awesome.

We are starting to get his room all set up. We got Ryan's office moved out of the room and set up downstairs. I still want to paint the walls. The nasty lemon yellow color that was on the walls when we moved in is just not doing it for me. I probably should have painted before put furniture in there, but I'm still not sure what color I want to do yet.

Here's the crib and furniture that we got for the room.

Ugh... that yellow is so hideous!

He even has a small stash of clothes already! Mostly from my mom and sisters. :) That's about 2 whole days worth for a baby, right?